Frodo was only dimly aware of what was happening around him. Sam's tears, Gandalf's cool hand laid on his brow--none of it touched him. He was filled with a terrible pain that tore at him from the inside, as if the baby were trying to fight its way out of his body.
He was screaming by the time the healer arrived, bringing the midwife. There was a hasty consultation between the two, then a glass of greenish liquid was held to Frodo's lips.
"Here, little one," the midwife said, "drink this down. It'll take the pain away, and make you sleep."
He drank, and the pain diminished. It was as if the potion he'd swallowed were washing through him in waves, green like river-water running in his blood. He felt as if he were drowning in it, looking up from the depths at the sunlit world above. He heard voices shouting urgent orders, but they sounded distant and indistinct; the words had no meaning. His body was lifted, his clothes removed, and thick towels were placed beneath him, and this too seemed unimportant. Even Sam, who clung to his hand, refusing to leave his side and promising that everything would be all right, seemed as if he were miles away. Then Frodo sank farther down beneath the waves. He floated alone in the sweet, green water...
He dreamt once again of the tower of Cirith Ungol. He lay bound to a table. His belly, which rose to a great mound, was lit red from within, growing and swelling as if it were about to burst.
Over him stood the orc captain with a knife upraised.
"Time to talk, little rat," the orc said, but instead of waiting for him to beg for a release from the pain, it brought the knife down immediately and split his belly open with a single, sweeping slice.
What emerged was not a baby, not a orcling, but a single glowing orb like a fiery eye.
When Frodo awoke, it was morning. The curtains were drawn over the windows, but shafts of bright sunlight came in through the gaps. Everyone seemed to have gone and left him alone. He was in his own bed. The bedclothes had been changed, and he was wearing a clean nightshirt.
As he ran one hand over his now-flat abdomen, he found that it felt peculiarly stiff and padded; he was still groggy from the effects of the green potion he'd drunk the night before, and it took him a moment to realize that there were bandages wrapped tightly around his torso from his hips to the bottom of his ribs.
*They cut me open,* he thought. *They've taken it from me. Sam couldn't stop them.*
Tears began to well in his eyes, and then he heard a baby's cry. He turned his head on the pillow to see that he was not alone: Sam was standing over a cradle that had been placed before the hearth.
"Is it... all right?" he asked, half-afraid of the answer.
Sam looked up at him, beaming. "Beautifullest little hobbit-lad you've ever seen! Not a thing wrong with him anyone can find."
"It's a boy?" Frodo didn't know why that should surprise him, but then he realized that he would have been just as surprised to hear that it was a girl. He had simply never thought of this mysterious baby in terms of an ordinary hobbit-child of either sex. "A little boy." He tried to sit up, when a twinge of fresh pain stopped him.
"Here, love, just lie still," Sam said as he rushed to the bedside and made Frodo lie back down. "You're all stitched up, and you don't want to pull 'em loose. The healer says you aren't to be moved for at least a week. You're going to be in some pain `til you heal, and he's given me some medicine you're to take for it. You're to have quiet and rest. No one'll trouble you--I'll see to that."
"Can I see the baby?" Frodo asked once Sam had given him a dose of medicine and propped him comfortably on fluffed-up pillows.
"I'll bring him over." Sam returned to the cradle to gather up the tiny bundle within its blanket, lifted it carefully, and carried it to the bed. He tipped the bundle slightly so Frodo could see the baby's face.
The child was beautiful, not crushed and red and funny-looking like the other newborn babies Frodo had seen, but fair and pink, with wisps of blonde curls on the crown of the tiny head.
"Would you like to hold him?" asked Sam.
"Can I?"
"Don't see why you shouldn't. He's your baby, isn't he? Here, be careful now-" Sam shifted the bundle to place it in the curve of Frodo's arm.
As he cradled the baby to his chest, the bluest eyes he'd ever seen opened to meet his. Frodo lifted his free hand to touch the tiny, pudgy pink fingers, which curved around the tip of his own finger and held on with a remarkably strong grip. He laughed out loud. "Is it really all right?"
"The midwife and healer, and Gandalf, and even the wet-nurse who was brought in to feed him went over every inch of him from the minute he was out of you," Sam told him. "Every one of `em's said they've never seen a healthier baby, even if they've never seen one so small--small, that is, for the Big Folk. He hardly looks like an early baby at all. There's no reason to think him anything but a normal newly-born hobbit."
"Except for where he came from." This puzzle remained unsolved--and, yet in spite of the seeming impossibility, he was holding his son in his arms. Frodo had no idea how it had come about, but as long as the child was not a hideous monstrosity, deformed, or of an orcish cast, he felt he had no cause for complaint.
"What're you going to name him?" Sam asked.
Frodo hadn't considered this very basic question either. "Drogo," he decided after thinking it over, "after my father." He looked around the empty room. "Has everyone gone, Sam?"
"The Master Healer and midwife are gone, but she said she'd be back this morning to see how you came through the night. The nurse is upstairs. We gave her a room so she'll be nearby when she's needed."
"And Gandalf...?"
"Gandalf went back to the palace, to tell `em about the baby," Sam told him. "He was here all night, sitting up with me to watch over you. Then, when it started to grow light, he said that the King and Lord Elrond ought to know what'd happened, and he got up and left."
Frodo held the baby protectively closer. "What do you think he'll tell them?" They might not be out of danger yet.
"I don't know," Sam admitted. "He said he meant no harm, and he was a help to you last night." Deferentially, lest Frodo should disagree, he added, "I wonder if you might've been wrong not to trust him."
But Frodo did not disagree; he was beginning to wonder the same thing himself.
When Gandalf returned to the house a short while later, both hobbits regarded him anxiously.
"Ah, Frodo, I'm glad to see you're awake," said the wizard. "How are you feeling?"
"Weak, and very tired, but I think I will recover."
"And the child?"
"He's fine. Beautiful." Frodo asked the question foremost on his mind: "Are they going to try and take him from me, Gandalf?"
"No," Gandalf assured him. "I told the council that I have examined the child, and deem it no threat to anyone. There is no reason why it shouldn't be left in your care, and so it will remain unless I see some sign that it might become dangerous in the future."
Sam laughed. "A pretty little mite like our Drogo? A danger?"
"We've no way of knowing what this 'little mite' may grow to be," Gandalf told him solemnly.
"But they've agreed?" asked Frodo. "They'll let us alone?"
"Lord Elrond will no doubt wish to see the child for himself, but he has consented to abide with my advice. Aragorn also wishes to see you, if you do not object to his visit."
"No," said Frodo, "I've no objection to their coming, if it will convince them that there's nothing wrong with my baby."
"No one else will disturb your recovery," Gandalf promised.
"Thank you." Frodo glanced up at the wizard shyly, then asked Sam, "Will you leave us for a moment, please? I'd like to talk with Gandalf."
"If you're sure it's all right..."
"It's all right, Sam."
Sam retrieved the baby from Frodo's arms. "It's near time for his feeding anyway. I'll take him up to the nurse." He went out, leaving them alone.
"Gandalf?" Frodo began timidly. "I truly do wish to thank you. You have looked after my best interests, even when I didn't believe you would. I'm very sorry for the way I behaved last night. You were right--I was terribly frightened, and hysterical. I did myself no good, and I was horrible to you." He held out one hand. "Will you forgive me?"
"Of course," Gandalf said reassuringly as he came closer to the bed to take Frodo's hand. "I understand why you behaved as you did."
"Your council threatened my baby."
"Yes, and it was ill-considered, but you must see why they acted as they did. You must understand their fear, Frodo." Gandalf explained, "The Men of Gondor have lived under the shadow of Mordor all their lives, and are afraid they are not yet free of it. The Elves too are afraid of what this child represents. Their powers have waned since the destruction of the Ring. Even the greatest among them fear that they may not be able to contend with a force of evil if they wait too long. I confess that this prospect troubles me as well."
Frodo had not realized this. The Elves' powers had diminished--and Gandalf's too? Yes. Gandalf had always had the appearance of an old man; now, somehow, he looked older. There was a weariness in the wizard's eyes that Frodo hadn't noticed before. It was more than fatigue after their recent quarrel, but something that went deeper. Frodo didn't quite understand how, but the Ring's destruction had affected him as well as the Elves. They had fought to defeat Sauron and his minions, but that battle had had its price. It had put an end to much of the world's magic, for good as well as evil.
"Do you think that's likely?" Frodo asked. "You're still worried that my little Drogo may be 'a force of evil'? Do you think he could grow into something..." he could barely say it, "something monstrous?"
"Your Drogo seems no more than a harmless infant, but you mustn't forget that his origin has not been explained," Gandalf reminded him. "We know that he was almost certainly conceived in Mordor."
"That's what we've always believed, but couldn't we be mistaken?" Frodo countered. "Perhaps he's been given to me by some other means, for some other reason."
"What then?" asked Gandalf. "How do you account for his existence?"
"I can't," Frodo admitted, "but I agree with Sam: Could anything so lovely as that baby have been created for an evil purpose?"
But Gandalf, he saw, remained doubtful.
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